Côte d'Ivoire: Gbagbo files a complaint with the IEC to be registered on the electoral list

Still removed from the electoral list three months before the local elections, Laurent Gbagbo filed this Thursday morning, June 8, an appeal to the Independent Electoral Commission. Acquitted by the ICC of crimes against humanity committed during the 2010-2011 post-election crisis, he remains under sentence of 20 years in prison in Côte d'Ivoire for the "robbery" of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) in 2011. Pardoned by the presidency, but not amnestied, he is still deprived of his civil rights.

Former President Laurent Gbagbo speaks not far from the IEC offices in Abidjan, June 8, 2023. AFP - ISSOUF SANOGO

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With our correspondent in Abidjan, Marine Jeannin

It was in a small committee that Laurent Gbagbo went to this office of the Independent Electoral Commission of Abidjan. The PPA-CI activists had been ordered not to move, and respected it.

The former president personally signed his appeal to the IEC. Before going out to make a statement to the press. He returned to his conviction by the Ivorian justice in the case known as the "robbery" of the BCEAO in 2011: an accusation, he says, that he "refutes vigorously".

« I don't know why I was judged. No one has summoned me because in order for there to be a trial, the accused is summoned, he is given a summons where he resides. But everyone, the whole universe knows where I resided at the time of this trial. I was at the ICC! »

Laurent Gbagbo ended his speech with a call for peace. "The moment of blows has passed," he pleaded, before encouraging Henri Konan Bédié and Alassane Ouattara to work together with him to "leave the younger generations a pacified Côte d'Ivoire". But he will not give up on reclaiming his civil rights, he promised, concluding: "I will not let my name be sullied without a fight.

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  • Ivory Coast
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